John O'Quinn knew the law, a simple fact never in doubt. But before he cracked a legal text or saw the inside of a courtroom, he knew something else — cars.

O'Quinn's education began when he was 10 years old, courtesy of his father's humid garage, where he spent afternoons and weekends until he finished high school. Decades later, after his 60th birthday, it resumed at a classic car auction in Katy and continued until the prominent Houston litigator died in a car accident last week, when he had invited an overseas expert and a film crew to witness the rebirth of one of the great novelties of his vast collection: the oldest existing working automobile.

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Starting on that day in 2003 when he purchased 14 cars at his first auction, O'Quinn became a towering figure in the world of automotive collecting. He amassed a collection that numbers more than 800 vehicles, from the overtly silly Batmobile to a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow once owned by a maharaja.

Only one figure in American history, casino magnate Bill Harrah, had put together anything approaching O'Quinn's collection, and it seemed fitting that a number of the late Harrah's cars now reside in one of O'Quinn's Houston warehouses.

“In the sheer number of significant cars, I don't think there has ever been one like this,” said Ken Dougherty, owner of a Houston company that buys, sells and restores classic cars and an early adviser when O'Quinn took up the hobby. “There are other nice collections, but they are usually oriented towards one particular car or period. He bought across the board. He had everything. There was not a single type of car he did not have. He could send cars to any event that was specializing in any genre and they really wouldn't have to ask anyone else.”

Houston has seen impressive car collections before, including those of shopping center developer Jerry Moore, auto dealer Sterling McCall and former Shell Oil CEO John Bookout. But O'Quinn surpassed them all, and he boasted a vision beyond the mere acquisition of cars for personal whim or pleasure. He planned to build a museum to display them that he claimed would be the greatest in the world. He had already hired people to compile archival research on cars and to take oral histories from important automotive figures.

An ironic ending

He had even scouted potential sites. He was intrigued by one tract near downtown and one closer to the Museum District. He predicted the museum would be completed by 2010, and he acknowledged he was far from finished buying more cars.

The irony of the way O'Quinn died — a car wreck on a wet street near downtown — was lost on no one aware of the passion that had come to consume him, and surprised no one who had ever ridden with him as he drove at breakneck speeds around town. But the collector car world is now focused on another matter: What will become of the museum and the collection?

“The simple answer is I don't know,” said Gerald Treece, a longtime friend who also will serve as executor of the estate. Treece said O'Quinn's personal property has been left to the foundation that served his charitable giving. It will take awhile to determine whether the cars in effect belong to the foundation or to the separate corporation, Treece said.

O'Quinn was not married and had no children, reducing the likelihood of a probate dispute. His longtime girlfriend, Darla Lexington, oversaw the corporation in charge of the collection and usually accompanied him on his trips to car auctions around the country.

What car lovers wandering through such a museum might someday see are samples of a mind-boggling inventory assembled in a stunningly short amount of time, from the world's best assortment ofDuesenbergs — including the most expensive one ever sold — to iconic American muscle cars to the rarest Ferraris to a Lincoln ordered by Queen Elizabeth II. Certainly a main attraction of the museum would be a Rolls-Royce purchased by Houstonian Howard Hughes for his new bride from a local Packard dealership.

O'Quinn was a force previously unwitnessed in the classic car world. He bought and bought and never stopped.

“It was interesting for those of us on the inside because an outsider suddenly appeared and quickly made an impact,” said Keith Martin, publisher of Sports Car Market Magazine, a leading collector publication. “He didn't pay what we thought the market value was worth on a particular car. If he wanted it, he bought it.”

Autos with histories

Martin said word was that O'Quinn wanted to have at least 1,000 cars. If true, he did not have far to go. The challenge was finding cars he did not have and which suited an increasingly refined taste. Then again, sometimes it was not the inherent value of the car that interested him, but the story behind it. One of his prized pieces was a modest 1975 Ford Escort once owned by a Polish priest named Karol Wojtyla, better known by his papal name, John Paul II.

“The market will never be the same,” Daugherty said of the collecting void left by O'Quinn's death. “He made more impact in six years than anybody had ever made in such a short time in the collector car business. And possibly more impact than anyone who collected over 20 years.”

The value of the collection is hard to determine. It was once said to be worth more than $100 million, but that was more than 200 cars ago. Experts claim his collection has more cars with a price in excess of $1 million than any other, and that if the entire inventory was put up for auction it would depress the market by at least 40 percent.

But money was never the point to O'Quinn. Friend and personal attorney Dale Jefferson went to a couple of auctions with him and marveled at the joy he showed when the cars started rolling across the block. Weeks later, when the vehicles O'Quinn had purchased finally made it to Houston, legal work came to a temporary halt. One day Jefferson had business to discuss and was told by O'Quinn to meet him at the warehouse, not the office.

“On this day, he had gotten in a shipment of about eight cars — a woody, a hot rod, some car from the '20s, a DeLorean. We had business to do, so what we did was get in the woody and drive this set route he always took. He drove and we talked business on the way out, then talked about the car on the way back. Then we got in another car and did the same thing.”